Joe Kidd author page
2 puzzles by Joe Kidd
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 9 answer words debuted by Joe Kidd.
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This rebus RINGs a bell … ah yes, a recent proposal crossword. I'd also seen variations on circles represent circle synonyms. I did wonder if ROUND was as strong as the others, since it feels primarily like an adjective, but it can be used as a noun.
It's hard to make a rebus stand out these days, since we've seen so many of them. Picking great theme phrases can help — THREW FOR A LOOP crossing FROOT LOOP, yes! CIRCLE THE WAGONS, excellent. And who doesn't like hearing THIS ROUND IS ON ME, especially when compared to what we usually see in the crossworld, the partialish ON ME?
Bonuses in the fill can help, too. I like what Joe did in the center, giving us a smooth region from DANCE to FROOT, but the corners could have been opened up. I'd love to see what might be possible by taking out the black square between ERRS and EYED, or SEUSS and MAR. I bet with another round of revision, we could have been treated to more long bonuses, along with some smoothing out of IGET/EES, and ULM/OFNO/ESS.
Clever clues can help, too. A SLED traveling "tirelessly" is groanworthily fantastic. An HEIR has it (the estate) coming. And I appreciated the DESTINY and FOG clues, linking to famous quotes. FOG coming on little cat feet, so eerily playful.
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| A | R | I | A | O | D | E | A | N | A | I | V | E | ||
| B | E | L | T | U | R | N | S | E | L | L | E | N | ||
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| S | L | A | N | G | N | I | N | O | O | N | T | O | ||
| H | O | L | Y | T | R | A | Y | W | E | S | T |
ELS additions in today's debut offering. SECURITY CAMELS confused me at first — I thought it was a CAMERAS to CAMELS transmogrification. But trying to guess what the theme revealer might be, I only came up with RATOL. (RA to L.) Is RATOL a thing? Surely it's a bit of crossword glue that Joe was playing upon?
No? Drat!
(It was SECURITY CAM to SECURITY CAMELS, not SECURITY CAMERAS to SECURITY CAMELS. D'oh!)
I find that letter addition puzzles can be greatly helped by an apt revealer (I'm still holding out hope that RATOL is a thing. Anyone?). It can be fine to "add three random letters," as long as the results are amusing, but there's something so elegant to having a raison d'etre that puts a final bow on a puzzle.
With just three themers, I'd expect a ton of great long fill, and Joe did not disappoint. Fantastic choices in FAT CHANCE, YOUR MOVE, EASY THERE, KA-CHING, INSURGENT, ODE TO JOY, OH COME NOW, all entries I'd happily include in a themeless puzzle. These extras are so important to hold the attention of solvers with whom the theme might not have resonated.
Nice spacing, too, alternating these long bonuses up, down, up, down, etc. all the way across the grid. That's a great way to do it, not putting too much constraint on any one part of the grid.
Even with so much great fill though, I'd expect little to no crossword glue, given the low theme density. There's so much flexibility in those long bonus slots, that with enough work and effort, it should be possible to find options that don't end up requiring something like ADRIP/ODEA in one region. As much as I love YOUR MOVE (sounds like a Bond villain's utterance) and EASY THERE, I'm sure there exists a pair of long entries that would have allowed Joe to fill that north region more cleanly.
Overall though, I appreciated the effort of working in so much stellar bonus material, especially from a debut constructor.